California Looks at Curbing Construction in Wild Fire-Prone Areas - The New York Times - 0 views
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The proposals, many of which would require approval by the State Legislature, could remake the real estate market in parts of California and are the latest sign of how climate change is beginning to wreak havoc with parts of the American economy.
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The building industry quickly pushed back against the recommendations. Dan Dunmoyer, president of the California Building Industry Association, said it wasn’t necessary to limit development because building standards are already strong enough to protect homes in high-risk areas.
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In response, insurers have begun pulling out of fire-prone areas, threatening people’s ability to buy and sell homes, which depends on access to affordable insurance. That’s because banks generally require insurance as a condition of issuing a mortgage.The state has taken a series of increasingly aggressive steps, including temporarily banning companies from dropping some customers after wildfires. But those steps were meant to be a stopgap as state officials searched for more lasting changes that would allow the insurance industry to keep doing business in high-hazard areas.
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But other proposed changes reflect the growing consensus among experts that accelerating climate risk is fast becoming uninsurable — and if governments want insurance to remain affordable, it will mean finding new ways to limit people’s exposure to that risk.In California, like most other states, local officials have significant control over where homes are built. Those officials face powerful incentives to permit the construction in fire-prone areas: New houses mean more jobs and more residences, which translate into more tax revenue.
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And if local officials insist on building in places exposed to wildfires, the recommendations call for preventing those homes from getting insurance through the state’s FAIR Plan.
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State Senator Bill Dodd, a Democrat whose district includes Napa, Sonoma and other areas hit hard by recent wildfires, said he was open to many of the recommendations, including stopping access to the FAIR Plan for new homes in high-risk areas, halting infrastructure spending and expanding building codes. “We’ve got to rethink how we are developing” in those places, he said.