Safety Element Update

The Safety Element of the General Plan identifies safety hazards and includes policies to reduce the potential short and long-term risk of death, injuries, property damage, and economic and social dislocation resulting from fires, floods, droughts, earthquakes, landslides, climate change, and other hazards. The Safety Element guides local decisions related to zoning, subdivisions, and entitlement permits. The Safety Element should also contain general hazard and risk reduction strategies complementary with those of the Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP), which will be incorporated into the Safety Element in accordance with provision of Assembly Bill 2140 (2006).

The City’s Safety Element was most recently updated in 2013. An update to the Safety Element is required after each revision of the Housing Element or LHMP, both of which were completed in 2023. The update will evaluate new information relating to flood and fire hazards and climate adaptation and resiliency strategies that were not available during the previous revision of the Safety Element. In addition, new state laws adopted since the 2013 Safety Element require identification of evacuation routes and an evaluation of their capacity, safety, and viability under a range of emergency scenarios, identification of residential developments in hazard areas that do not have at least 2 emergency evacuation routes, and identification of evacuation locations. The Safety Element must also be reviewed and updated as necessary to address climate adaptation and resiliency strategies based on a vulnerability assessment.