San Diego Urban Wildfire

Mayor Todd Gloria is bringing forward reforms to the City of San Diego’s Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Density Bonus Program that will continue its success in expanding affordable home options while ensuring projects are consistent with the scale and character of San Diego’s neighborhoods.The reforms address community concerns related to unintended impacts of the ADU program. The City regularly monitors its housing programs to ensure they are achieving the desired results and often makes adjustments based on feedback from the community and home builders.

There’s no such thing as a fireproof house, yet, but that hasn’t stopped one builder from trying. Los Angeles-based KB Home unveiled its Dixon Trail development in Escondido this week that it calls “wildfire resistant.” It comes with 10-foot buffers between homes, flame-resistant vents, noncombustible gutters and fake window shutters made of concre…

Cal Fire’s new maps for Southern California added 3.5 million acres into fire-hazard zones, increasing the acreage in the highest hazard zone by 26%.

With a few notable areas where the orange and red tide receded, like the hills above Berkeley and Oakland, territory deemed “high” or “very high” hazard exploded across the state, increasing by 168% since 2011.

Re “San Diego must not abandon its housing success story” (March 12 ): While I’m not surprised a special-interest YIMBY group member like Saad Asad would glorify the highly flawed ADU Bonus Program, let’s be serious: ADU complexes are nothing more than unregulated apartment buildings negatively impacting single-family neighborhoods in terms of scale, traffic and safety.

Deed-restricted ADU rents are not affordable; the one near me rents for $4,900 a month. Waiving development impact fees deprives San Diego of revenue needed to build supporting infrastructure. They typically target starter homes for first-time homebuyers and discourage housing for families. Pushing density a mile away from transit means tenants need cars that take up street parking. They’re being built in very high fire hazard severity zones, and those parked cars block emergency evacuation routes.

The “interest groups representing homeowners in wealthy neighborhoods” he mentions were the hundreds of homeowners themselves who packed the council chambers at the March 4 hearing to speak out against ADUs. Let’s be realistic and repeal the program.

— Bonnie Kutch, University City

Properties in the region with higher wildfire risks sell for less and appreciate at a slower rate, according to CoreLogic data.

Looking to prevent large “outlier” projects, officials will restrict large lots from using the “bonus ADU” program, and seek other reforms.

ISSAQUAH, Wash. — President Donald Trump’s moves to slash the federal workforce have gutted the ranks of wildland firefighters and support personnel, fire professionals warn, leaving communities to face deadly consequences when big blazes arrive this summer. “There’s going to be firefighters that die because of this, there will be communities that burn,” said Steve […]

As wildfires grow more frequent and intense with climate change, and become a greater threat to cities, water utilities are reckoning with the reality that they must build back better.

Watch Duty proved indispensable during the recent LA wildfires. John Mills, the app’s creator, wants it to be the one place to go for tracking disasters. He just needs all the data to do it.

Fighting a massive and rapidly spreading wildfire from the air is a truly mind boggling logistical effort. I used flight data from FlightAware, and wildfire… | 24 comments on LinkedIn

The number of California acres mapped into higher “fire hazard severity zones” is doubling. Stricter fire safety building codes will follow.

The few structures still standing in Altadena and Pacific Palisades may offer clues on making homes more resistant to wildfire.

Los Angeles County keeps building in hillsides and canyons even as the fire risk worsens. For a century, the lure of development in natural surroundings has won out.

Our urgent need for more housing should be focused on how to build without increasing fire risks as the climate changes.

The San Diego City Council was meant to discuss repealing a footnote in the city’s Land Development Code. But its final vote also targeted an unrelated housing program.

The city is forging ahead with high-density housing plans while neglecting brush management and the creation of safe evacuation routes, putting the residents of University City and other neighborhoods at high risk.

The city says it must balance wildfire and climate concerns with the need for more housing to address the cost of living in San Diego

LA fires expose California’s difficult road to navigate between disaster risk and solving the state’s housing crisis.

At a community meeting tonight in Clairemont tonight, Jan. 28, a proposal will be made that calls for an emergency moratorium on all infill construction projects in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Z…