Mitigating California Wildfire Impact Through Zoning and Housing Policy

Over the last fifty years, California has been facing an affordable housing crisis. In an attempted solution, government subsidies have driven housing development into untouched wildlands across the state. However, these developments are increasingly subject to destruction by wildfire due to global climate change and historical mismanagement of public lands. This places residential zoning and housing policy as critical components to mitigate wildfire impact. This report suggests implementation of a multipronged approach over the next decade, which includes discontinuing development in extremely high-risk fire zones, increase government buyouts in these high-risk areas to move people out of harm’s way, increase urban up-zoning to generate affordable housing, and increase retrofitting of existing at-risk homes to enhance structural and resident survival and safety.