SACRAMENTO, California — California officials are considering making their proposed fire-resistant landscaping rules more flexible after pushback from Southern California representatives.
What happened: The Board of Forestry and Fire Protection proposed exempting more plants from its proposed requirements that property owners in fire-prone areas clear all flammable material, from wooden fences to decorative bushes, from within 5 feet of buildings in a new draft Thursday.
The proposed changes, which add exemptions for some well-maintained plants and trees protected under local ordinances, follow significant opposition from property owners in Southern California, where the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously on Oct. 7 to oppose an earlier version of the rules out of concern they didn’t adequately take into account local biodiversity and urban shade.
Why this matters: The long-delayed rules, required by a 2020 state law, could transform neighborhoods from inside out, igniting broad interest from property owners across the state who could be on the hook for up to thousands of dollars of landscaping changes. Fire-resistant landscaping took on renewed urgency after January’s wildfires in Los Angeles, which prompted Newsom to order the board to finalize the rules this year.
