SB 610 Was Stopped
The bill did not pass in 2024 - reducing concerns about its ripple effects and costs borne by all Californians.
The following summary of proposed 2024 SB 610 legislation documents the political “housing first” mindset prior to the January 2025 Los Angeles firestorms. SAFRR has joined forces with coalition partners to advocate for future legislation that protects public safety.
Gut and Amend Legislation
Senate Bill 610 (2024 by Senator Wiener, San Francisco ) would have reshaped California fire policy via a gut-and-amend process without adequate hearings or stakeholder engagement. This bill proposed sweeping changes to the State’s fire policies, by completely abolishing the State Wildfire Hazard Severity Zone maps and replacing them with one-size-fits-all, ill defined “mitigation map.”
SB 610 was introduced in June 2024, less than a month before the legislative recess, allowing insufficient time for stakeholders and elected officials to fully review the bill, let alone having time for the proposed amendments to be meaningfully considered.
Per the Capitol Weekly: “One of the controversial occurrences during the annual California Legislative Session is so-called “gut-and-amend” bills. According to the Office of Legislative Counsel, these measures are defined as “when amendments to a bill remove the current contents in their entirety and replace them with different provisions.”
“The controversy lies in the second part of the process – replacing the bill’s contents with a subject which is entirely unrelated to the original contents of the bill. Such amendments raise the legislative issue of “germaneness,” which refers to whether a proposed amendment is relevant to the subject matter currently contained in the measure.” Source: Capitol Weekly: Chris Micheli
In addition, SB 610 had costly ripple effects across state law
Staff analysis for the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources identified over 50 unique statutory code sections referencing Fire Hazard Severity Zones (FHSZ), including insurance code, planning and land use code, housing development approvals, wildfire financial assistance program, street and highway code, health and safety code, and building and development standards and safety improvements.
SB 610 also proposed the false narrative that the building code can effectively mitigate the risk of wildfires, and was at odds with the recommendations of both the:
Governor’s Strike Force recommendations, which caution against further development in high-risk areas and urge the State to:
“...begin to deprioritize new development in areas of the most extreme fire risk.”
The Climate Insurance Working Group (California Department of Insurance) draft report addresses the problem of multiple accelerating climate impacts. The report states:
“Land use decisions in the past are one of the causes of insurability problems today.” Housing that burns down…is not an affordable or equitable option. The report warns that when state and local governments fail to consider the full costs of development, “...additional costs may be borne by state or federal taxpayers when disaster strikes, thus potentially creating a perverse incentive to approve development that is ill-advised.”
SB 610 misled the public with the false premise that development in high fire hazard zones can be rendered safe. And, mischaracterized the current role of fire risk in the siting of development, as well as insurance costs.
Mitigation can make development in fire zones less risky, but not safe. Home hardening and defensible space are essential for already existing structures, yet such measures only reduce the chance of burning.
State policy includes heightened requirements and approval processes for development in fire prone zones because it is inherently risky, with long-term potential costly consequences. The “build first, ask questions later” approach of the past is causing extreme personal and economic hardship on Californians.
As described in the Insurance Commissioner’s Questions and Answers, this proposed bill would have had impacts on many pieces of legislation tied to the Hazard Severity Maps. Thus, making existing problems far worse.
In the 2017 Thomas Fire (Ventura, CA) the great majority of structures damaged or destroyed had fire resistant roof construction and fire-resistant exterior siding. Likewise, an analysis by Knapp, et al conducted in the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire (Paradise, CA) showed that only 44 percent of homes built to current Chapter 7A building codes survived, meaning 56 percent were destroyed. And, only 11.5 percent of older homes built before 1997 survived.
SB 610 proposed to strip city and county authority to designate fire zones within their own jurisdictions despite their critical role in wildfire risk reduction.
In addition to state designations, existing law allows both cities and counties to designate areas as fire zones as moderate, high, and very high “fire hazard severity zones”. SB 610 would have prevented cities and counties from designating fire zones based on scientific information.
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