The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the state agency overseeing regional planning, voted to approve the state’s most detailed and comprehensive sea-level rise guidelines Thursday.
The Regional Shoreline Adaptation Plan directs more than 50 Bay Area cities and counties to submit detailed plans to the BCDC to relocate shoreline infrastructure, protect it with natural or human-made barriers or otherwise accommodate the rising waters. It includes checklists for local planners to coordinate development, limit displacing vulnerable populations, maintain critical utilities, address groundwater contamination and preserve public access to the shoreline.
The San Francisco Bay Area may have one-third of California’s coastline, but it’s facing two-thirds of the state’s projected economic risk from the 6 to 7 feet of sea-level rise projected by 2100.
BCDC Chair Zack Wasserman called the document a “generational document” in the meeting Thursday.
