In order to better rebuild and recover from the October 2017 North Bay fires, the new Sonoma County Office of Recovery and Resiliency is holding public workshops to fine tune a new Fire Recovery Plan. This is your chance to speak up for fire-safe communities, greenbelts, healthy forests, affordable homes, and zero energy building!
The Fire Recovery Plan features sections on Natural Resources, Housing, Economy, Safety Net, and Community Preparedness and Infrastructure. Greenbelt Alliance urges you to attend one or more of these important workshops. You can also send comments to recoveryinfo@sonoma-county.org.
Workshop Details
All meetings will be from 6-8 p.m.
- July 25: Petaluma Community Center, 320 N McDowell Blvd, Petaluma, CA 94954.
- August 2: Finley Community Center, 2060 W. College Ave., Santa Rosa, CA, 95401.
- August 8: Veterans Memorial Hall, 126 First St., Sonoma, CA, 95476.
Click here for more information on the upcoming workshops.
Greenbelt Alliance is mobilizing our partners and the community to participate in planning the future of Sonoma County. Here are some key points we’ve developed together.
Natural Resources
- Protect and enhance our greenbelt and community separators.
- Add new protections to the highest fire risk lands to prevent further unwise development, avoid loss of life, and preserve biodiversity.
- Use a balanced approach to restore and protect the health of our forests.
- Require increased riparian setbacks to improve the health of watersheds.
- Permanently protect a network of lands that support biological diversity in the face of changing climate conditions.
- Uphold and enforce the California Environmental Quality Act.
Housing
- Prevent new or increased development in high fire risk areas.
- Raise the standards for fire-safe housing construction and risk prevention.
- Add a new section to the Fire Recovery Plan focused on fire-safe, zero-net-energy, green building principles and the use of natural materials.
- Mandate “all-electric ready” new homes.
- Adhere to city-centered growth within urban growth boundaries.
- Set and enforce higher affordability thresholds, particularly for publicly funded development.
- Add provisions to address displacement, homelessness, and minimize gentrification as a result of the fires.
- Provide detailed rationale for 30,000 new housing units by 2023, including proposed locations, number of affordable units, feasibility, cost, impacts to climate-changing emissions, environment, infrastructure, and emergency response.
Economy
- Add a new section to the Fire Recovery Plan that addresses training for workers, vocational training, and education.
- Add provisions that prioritize living wages and reduce income inequality.
- Add provisions that address the jobs/housing imbalance.
- Add a reference to building a strong economy by attracting clean, green industries such as high tech, and solar energy, and require increased local sourcing of organic food, beverages, and cannabis.
Safety Net
- Conduct and report water safety testing and monitoring in the burned areas and beyond.
- Add provisions that address the problems homeowners who lost their homes have had with insurance and prevent such hardships in the future.
- Consider making private-pay fire protection services mandatory in historic chaparral and other high risk areas.
To learn more about the Fire Recovery Plan, the upcoming workshops, and ways to get involved, please contact North Bay Regional Director Teri Shore via email at tshore@greenbelt.org.
Photo: Saxon Holt/PhotoBotanic
