week 6

James C. Schwab, Editor

Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning

American Planning Association

Planning Advisory Service Report Number 560

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Chapter 7

Case Studies: Intermediate Jurisdictions

ROSEVILLE, CALIFORNIA Kenneth C. topping, faicp

Roseville, a rapidly expanding suburb of Sacramento, California, features the largest rail yard west of the Mississippi River and seven creeks that feed into one drainage basin. Disasters in Roseville have included a major explosion at the rail yard in 1973 and several major flood events. Home to high-tech and health-care industries, the community has taken a proactive approach to protecting its growing asset base, leveraging flood-hazard mitigation ac- tions within a comprehensive planning framework, and using a vigorous economic development program as an engine for creating sustainability.

Mitigation of natural and human-caused hazards is an essential part of the community’s state-mandated general plan, as well as its federally guided Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, prepared under the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000. Roseville actively engages stakeholders in the monitoring of plan progress, and it has used the Community Rating System, its general plan, and the Roseville Hazard Mitigation Plan as foundations for promoting long-term economic and disaster resilience.

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88 Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning

Setting and Population Roseville is 20 miles east of Sacramento, near the base of the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range. Established during the mid-19th-century gold rush, the community grew rapidly in the early 1900s with establishment of a rail roundhouse and repair and yard facilities. It became an incorporated city in 1909. By the 1920s, Roseville had the largest freight yard west of the Mis- sissippi River. Growth spurts after World War II substantially increased the community’s population. The arrival of the high-tech firms Hewlett-Packard and NEC during the 1980s spurred economic development. Since 1990, the city’s population has more than tripled, and in the past decade the U.S. Cen- sus identified Roseville as the sixth-fastest-growing city in the country.

Roseville had an estimated population of 112,000 in 2009 and is the larg- est city in Placer County, with a third of the county’s population. Along with El Dorado, Sacramento, and Yolo counties, Placer County is part of the Sacramento Metropolitan Area, which borders on the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta region and has a history of flooding.

Disaster Experience The Roseville Hazard Mitigation Plan (RHMP) ranks human-caused events as a top hazard because of a major explosion and chemical-plume release in the rail yards in April 1973, when 6,000 bombs on a train bound for the Concord Naval Weapons Station detonated after a car caught fire (Figure 7.2). The blast injured more than 350 people and damaged 5,500 buildings, some more than a mile away.

Although the explosion was dramatic, flooding later matched it as a hazard of major concern. Roseville is divided by two drainage basins (Figure 7.3).

Figure 7.1. Roseville’s location

This case study focuses on the following documents:

• California Governor ’s Office of Planning and Research, General Plan Guidelines (2003)

• California Governor ’s Office of Emergency Services, 2007 State of California Multi-Hazard Mitiga- tion Plan

• Brian Laughlin, “Roseville Flood Mitigation,” unpublished paper (June 2009)

• Roseville 2020 General Plan Safety Element (2003)

• Roseville Hazard Mitigation Plan (June 2005)

In addition, interviews were con- ducted with the following people:

• Julia Burrows, Deputy City Man- ager, City of Roseville

• Robert Flaner, Senior Planner, Tetra Tech

• Rhon Herndon, Engineering Man- ager, City of Roseville

• Paul Richardson, Planning Direc- tor, City of Roseville ◀

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Chapter 7. Case Studies: Intermediate Jurisdictions 89

Figure 7.2. Three views of the 1973 Roseville rail yard explosion

Figure 7.3. Roseville floodplains

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90 Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning

The Pleasant Grove Creek Basin, which crosses the northwestern end of the city, has intermittent seasonal stream flows and no structures within its 100-year floodplain. Since 1950, no structural damage from flooding has occurred. By contrast, the Dry Creek Basin, which crosses the southeastern end, has a year-round flow. Between 1950 and 2003, 10 major floods resulted in more than $37 million in property damage, with the worst floods occur- ring in 1983, 1986, and 1995 (Laughlin 2009). Damages were incurred in older subdivisions that were built in the 1960s and 1970s, when floodplain mapping was not as accurate as it is today.

Learning from Disasters After these events, the community mobilized action to prevent future flood losses. For example, after the 1983 flood damaged 25 homes, six businesses, and two bridges, the California Legislature created the Placer County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, with a nine-member governing board comprising city and county representatives. The district generated the Dry Creek Watershed Flood Control Plan, which includes regional detention basins and other improvements for which developer fees have been collected. In 1985, the city contracted with an engineering firm to undertake a hydro- logical analysis leading to the 1986 publication of a Future Floodplain Map that showed the 100-year floodplain based on future land-use conditions and projected growth, not on existing conditions. The community then used this regulatory map, which showed a 100-year floodplain area greater than that on the FIRM maps, in restricting development within the floodplain’s perimeters. Although never formally adopted, the study has been used by the city as the best available information for regulatory and land-use programs such as specific plans and improvement standards.

As a result of the 1986 flood, the city’s improvement standards were revised to require all new developments to have an “overland release,” to be used in the event of a completely plugged underground storm-drain system. The combination of the 1986 mapping and this requirement has virtually eliminated the flood threat for development projects constructed since then; no structures constructed in Roseville since the mid-1980s have experienced flooding. However, Roseville has older areas that are still at risk of flooding.

The 1995 flood was much larger than the 1986 flood, damaging 358 struc- tures valued at $4.4 million and causing $8 million total damage (Figure 7.4). This flood generated substantial public interest in taking aggressive action, as well as a visit by President Bill Clinton, and led to appropriation of fed- eral funds to construct flood control improvements, elevate homes above base flood elevations, and buy out flood-prone properties. Since the 1995 flood, more than $20 million in flood control improvements have been implemented in Roseville.

Responses under NFIP and CRS Roseville began participating in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1983, and joined the Community Rating System (CRS) in 1991. NFIP requires participants to follow two basic criteria: All new buildings and developments undergoing major improvements must be elevated to or above the 100-year flood level, and new developments within portions of the floodplain must not increase flood problems or damage other properties.

From 1986 through 2001, Roseville expended $12.8 million in city funds on flood protection, home elevation, and land-acquisition projects, and it achieved a federal match from FEMA of $11.2 million for such projects (Table 7.1). More important, it saved many more dollars in future flood losses. For each dollar spent by the city on hazardous-property acquisition activity alone during this period, eight dollars’ worth of flood losses have been avoided

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Chapter 7. Case Studies: Intermediate Jurisdictions 91

TAbLE 7.1. ExAmPLES OF FLOOD ImPROVEmENTS FROm 1986 TO 2001

Year Project Approx. Cost

1986 Quadrupled size of culvert at Rocky Ridge Drive on Linda Creek to handle 100-year storm

$250,000

1986 Added culvert at Champion Oaks Drive at Linda Creek and improved channel upstream to increase channel capacity

$100,000

1986 Improved culvert at Union Pacific tracks on Dry Creek $100,000

1990 Enlarged culvert under Diamond Oaks Road, thereby protecting 10 homes that flooded in 1986

$250,000

1992 Replaced Loretto Bridge over Cirby Creek and widened channel between Eich School and Sierra Gardens Drive, bringing all nearby homes out of floodplain

$700,000

1993 Replaced Diamond Oaks culvert, bringing all nearby homes out of floodplain

$500,000

1996 Removed culvert under Union Pacific railroad tracks on Dry Creek downstream of Vernon Street, removing more than 150 homes from the floodplain, lowering flood elevations by 5 to 7 feet

$2 million (city portion $220,000)

1996

Cirby Creek/I-80 project (Tina/Elisa area) included channel excavation and construction of berms and floodwalls. Brought entire Tina/Elisa neighborhood of 40 homes out of floodplain through acquisition. Entire area would have flooded during a 1997 flood if improvements and acquisitions had not occurred

$3 million (100% city funded)

2001

Elevated structures not completely brought out of the floodplain by flood- control project construction. With voluntary home owner participation, 27 of 44 homes elevated, most located in Folsom/Maciel neighborhood along Dry Creek

$1 million (75% FEMA funded)

2001

Flood-control improvements on Linda Creek in the Champion Oaks/West Colonial Parkway and Sunrise/Oakridge areas replaced culverts with a bridge. Floodwalls and channel excavation brought 233 homes out of floodplain and reduced risk to 44 additional homes. Channel maintained in near natural state, with planting of more than 500 oaks

$16.1 million ($8.7 million from FEMA, $7.4 million in city funds)

Source: City of Roseville Flood Facts

Figure 7.4. View of the 1995 floods in Roseville

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92 Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning

(Burrows 2009). Additionally, in the time since floodwalls were constructed along Dry Creek with the support of FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Pro- gram (HMPG) funds, no losses have occurred there (Figure 7.5).

As a result of its proactive floodplain management program, Roseville by 2002 had achieved a CRS Class 5 rating. (See sidebar, p. 17.) In 2006, it became the first community in the country to earn a Class 1 rating, resulting in 45 percent discounts of flood insurance for policy holders (Roseville 2005a).

Role of the Comprehensive Plan Prior to adoption of the RHMP, flood hazard mitigation was carried out within a comprehensive policy framework established by the city’s general plan. The Roseville general plan was adopted as a comprehensive plan in 1972 and revised extensively in 1992. The general plan safety element was an important factor in determining flood hazard mitigation policy for the community, essentially setting the stage for much of the city’s flood mitiga- tion actions during the late 1990s.

California does not have a statewide growth-management system such as those in Washington and Florida. California laws instead emphasize local accountability for coordinated local planning and implementation actions, which must meet broad state standards. These laws include requirements for a comprehensive general plan with which zoning, subdivision, and local development permitting decisions must be consistent. At the center of these laws is the requirement that all cities and counties prepare and adopt a general plan as a comprehensive statement of future development goals, policies, and planned implementation actions. All general plans must include seven elements—land use, circulation, housing, safety, conservation, open space, and noise—which in turn must be consistent with one another. The safety element must reflect local hazards together with plans for their reduction. Most fundamentally, implementation actions—including zoning, subdivisions, capital improvements, and permits—must all be consistent with the general plan.

Figure 7.5. A Roseville floodwall

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Chapter 7. Case Studies: Intermediate Jurisdictions 93

Roseville Hazard mitigation Plan With the passage of the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000), locali- ties across the country were encouraged to prepare Local Hazard Mitigation Plans (LHMPs) as a necessary precondition to receiving HMGP funds under the Stafford Act. Preparation of the RHMP was initiated in 2003, and it was adopted in 2005 following an extensive public review process. It identified the following plan objectives:

• To meet or exceed DMA program requirements

• To meet both state and federal requirements as well as the needs of the city, so as to address human-caused hazards not mandated by DMA

• To provide content prescribed under CRS so Roseville could meet CRS classification prerequisites

• To coordinate existing ongoing plans and programs so that high-priority initiatives and projects to mitigate possible disaster impacts would be funded and implemented

• To create links between the RHMP and established plans, such as the city’s general and specific plans, so that they can work together in achieving successful mitigation.

The RHMP served not only DMA requirements but also the needs and character of Roseville, which has a long-standing tradition of proactive, progressive planning and program implementation. This is evident in the wide variety of hazards identified in the plan’s ambitious mitigation strategy, some aspects of which have already been implemented.

Linkage to the General Plan The RHMP is a comprehensive, detailed document that integrates the policies in the city’s general plan safety element and CRS objectives into a more focused mitigation planning and action framework. The plan brought a level of discipline to the city’s general plan safety element in that DMA standards exceed California safety-element requirements in certain ways— for example, calling for:

1. Greater rigor in hazard and risk assessments

2. Mandatory consideration of vulnerable populations 3. Prioritization of actions as part of the mandatory hazard mitigation

strategy.

The RHMP has been noted for its extraordinary thoroughness and exceptional quality, as it systematically covers natural and human- caused hazards, ranks hazards in importance, and creates a list of 71 prioritized mitigation actions linked to various ongoing city programs. An independent evaluation of the more than 400 local hazard mitigation plans approved by FEMA Region IX found the RHMP among the top 10 (Boswell et al. 2008).

Not unlike other local hazard-mitigation plans, the RHMP has expanded the scope of the general plan safety element by adding more detailed hazard, risk, and vulnerability assessments, ranking hazards and risks, and provid- ing a detailed action plan for implementation. When finished in 2005, it was adopted jointly with the general plan safety element, so that the documents reinforce each other as foundations for community safety (Roseville 2005a and Roseville 2005b).

The RHMP and the general plan safety element are intertwined in several ways. The RHMP cites the linkage to the general plan thus:

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94 Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning

The general plan is viewed as an integral part of the RHMP. These two planning documents will work together in their respec- tive arenas to achieve a common goal of hazard risk reduction. Many of the action items identified in Part 4 of this RHMP are policies implemented as recommendations of the general plan. The maintenance strategy identified in Part 5 of this RHMP identifies a plan update trigger for the RHMP tied to an update of the general plan.

In January 2009, Roseville adopted the RHMP by reference as part of the safety element of its general plan under the provisions of Assembly Bill 2140, a 2006 legislative action authorizing postdisaster state financial assistance to localities jointly adopting their LHMPs and safety elements. The Roseville City Council took additional action in September 2009 to clarify references between the safety element and the RHMP.

Stakeholder Engagement Roseville has well exceeded the minimum DMA requirements for citizen involvement by formulating the RHMP through a variety of robust out- reach measures. These included active participation of a 14-stakeholder Multi-Hazard Steering Committee that convened in August 2004 and met monthly through April 2005. The committee included representatives from businesses such as Hewlett-Packard, NEC, Union Pacific Railroad, Kaiser Permanente, and community-based organizations such as the Roseville Coalition of Neighborhood Associations. Three community workshops were held in the winter and spring of 2005, supplemented by local cable broadcasts, a webpage, press releases, mailings, and questionnaires, prior to the city council hearings that led to adoption.

Since then, the steering committee has met each July to monitor plan progress, review successes, address new state and federal requirements, offer advice on grant funding, and provide input into annual updates to the city council. Significant mitigation accomplishments noted by the committee at its July 2008 meeting included:

• Completion of the planting of 6,250 oak trees under the Native Oak Tree Planting Project, with another 1,000 to be planted in the upcoming fiscal year

• Acquisition (and removal of structures) of three Severe Repetitive Loss properties on Champion Oaks Drive with $227,996 in HMGP funds and $589,420 in Flood Mitigation Assistance funds (Figure 7.6)

• Relocation of the city emergency-operations center out of the 100-year floodplain

• Accreditation of the Roseville Building Department by the International Accreditation Service (IAS) under the International Building Code—the first building department to be so designated

• Completion of advanced National Incident Management System (NIMS) training for key city staff

• Activation by the city utilities department of California’s first Stage One Water Conservation Alert, in response to the U.S. Bureau of Rec- lamation’s drought-induced 25 percent reduction of the city’s water supply from Folsom Dam. This was followed in February 2009 by a mandatory Stage Two Alert, requiring water customers to reduce use by 20 percent.

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Chapter 7. Case Studies: Intermediate Jurisdictions 95

Leveraging Sustainability An important selling point driving stakeholder engagement in this sustained series of mitigation-planning action cycles has been the knitting together of three city initiatives of substantial interest to the community.

1. Economic development. The RHMP is seen as a foundation for long-term resilience, where asset protection through hazard mitigation ensures continuity and quick resumption of the community’s economy after a disaster. The city’s economic development team also markets the City of Roseville as one of the safest in the region when preparing prospect packages and meeting with potential new businesses.

2. Sustainability. Through protection of community assets from loss, hazard mitigation ensures that economic, social, historical, environmental, and physical resources will be sustained.

3. Green Communities Initiative. By using hazard mitigation to preserve permanent open space, plant new forests, and reduce excess water con- sumption, Roseville seeks to be a responsible part of the global effort to minimize conditions contributing to greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to climate change.

The continuing evolution of state policy related to climate change raises the question of how the evolving policies of Roseville and the state have influenced each other. The links are threefold. First, the legislature adopted AB 32 in 2006, drawing attention to the need for greenhouse gas reduction and carbon sequestration. Second, the 2007 California Multi-Hazard Mitiga- tion Plan included several sections on climate change, including a series of illustrative statements on the types of hazards that would be exacerbated by climate change—flooding, wildfires, excess heat, and so on. Finally, Roseville leadership sees a direct connection between climate change adaptation and natural-hazard mitigation. Deputy City Manager Julia Burrows, who was active on the State Hazard Mitigation Team that helped prepare the 2007 state plan, has taken an interest in making the city more resilient as well as green. She got the annual plan-review committee focused on this issue in July 2008, seven months after the plan’s adoption. Roseville was well ahead of the California Natural Resources Agency, which in late 2009 published the Climate Change Adaptation Strategy, reinforcing the 2007 SHMP.

The Story Continues No story ever ends. Roseville is revising the RHMP, not only because of federal requirements but because of an inherent community need to look ahead based on experience and new information. City staff recently made scoping recommendations for the five-year RHMP update, under way with

Figure 7.6. Acquisition of severe repetitive loss properties

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96 Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning

a $200,000 Pre-Disaster Mitigation grant and a $50,000 city match. In 2009, it began monthly meetings on the update, to be completed by 2010. The update will evaluate mitigation progress and issues emerging as important since 2005, such as climate change adaptability, potential failure of Folsom Dam and area dikes, and the inventory of buildings built before 1980.

The community has made major efforts in recent years to bring new eco- nomic life into the older downtown areas. The presence of older, seismically vulnerable unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings represents a potential business-continuity issue after an earthquake (Figure 7.7). The update will examine URM retrofit issues in response to state laws calling for local action. The initial RHMP addressed the issue of older, seismically vulner- able structures in some depth, placing the emphasis on age of the building inventory and less on type of construction, since URMs represent less than 1 percent of the city’s inventory. The general plan primarily emphasized geologic investigations dealing with new construction. The RHMP update represents a step forward in focusing on the URM problem, prompted in part by the state law (SB 547), which calls for inventories and remediation of URM buildings as well as the realization of the economic benefits of busi- ness continuity in downtowns.

Significance for Others Roseville represents the best convergence of local capacity to build and sustain disaster resilience through the support of state and federal laws and requirements, while always keeping the unique needs of the community uppermost. Its story demonstrates the use of best practices in planning and implementation. Building on a strong culture of preparedness and action, the community has its comprehensive general plan as a base for leverag- ing federal CRS benefits and FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance (HMA) financial incentives to accomplish mutually reinforcing objectives of hazard mitigation, economic development, and conservation. It reflects the strong commitment and collaboration of elected officials, local mitigation champi- ons, and subject-matter experts in systematically setting sensible priorities for action and monitoring progress. Finally, it reflects skill within the city leadership in communicating the benefits of strong mitigation action to members of the community in a manner that generates ongoing willingness to act toward the common good.

Figure 7.7. Downtown area unreinforced masonry buildings

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Chapter 7. Case Studies: Intermediate Jurisdictions 97

bERKELEY, CALIFORNIA Kenneth C. topping, faicp Berkeley, California, is an older city in the East Bay area of the San Francisco Bay region. Home to the University of California, an intellectual hub and symbol of liberalism, the community sits at the base of the wildfire-prone Berkeley Hills, astride the Hayward earthquake fault. From its inception, the community has suffered earthquake and wildfire disasters. Over the years, the community has sought to face its hazards, risks, and vulnerabilities and actively addressed hazard mitigation as a vital consideration for assuring sustainability of its unique social, economic, historical, cultural, and physical assets.

Mitigation of natural and human-caused hazards is written into both the comprehensive general plan and the Disaster Mitigation Plan. These documents both reflect the direction and progress of the ongoing mitigation program, under which the aging building inventory has been strengthened to reduce risks from the major earthquake expected on the Hayward and nearby San Andreas faults.

This case study focuses on the following documents:

• Disaster Mitigation Plan, City of Berkeley (June 2004)

• General Plan: A Guide for Public Decision-Making, City of Berkeley (December 2001)

• California Governor ’s Office of Planning and Research, General Plan Guidelines (2003)

• California Governor ’s Office of Emergency Services, 2007 State of California Multi-Hazard Mitiga- tion Plan

In addition, the following people were interviewed:

• Arrietta Chakos, former Assistant City Manager

• Gil Dong, Fire Marshal, Berkeley Fire Department

• Dan Lambert, Senior Manage- ment Analyst, Planning and Development Department, City of Berkeley

• Debra R. Pryor, Fire Chief, City of Berkeley ◀

Figure 7.8. The University of California–Berkeley campus, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background

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98 Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning

Setting and Population Berkeley is a city of about 100,000 people and part of a nine-county region that, with an estimated 7.4 million people, is now the sixth-most-populous metropolitan region in the United States. The Bay Area comprises a variety of subregions that are interconnected with six bridges, freeways, ferries, rail lines, and a rail rapid transit line and linked to the rest of the world by three airports and three container ports.

The East Bay Hills run from northwest to southeast approximately 60 miles, from the Carquinez Strait to Milpitas. At their base is the Hayward fault (Figure 7.9), which is capable of generating a magnitude 7.0 earthquake and bisects Berkeley, Oakland, and other nearby communities.

History Founded as a town in 1878 following establishment of the University of California there in 1868, Berkeley became a city in 1909. The community experienced rapid growth after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake as thou- sands of evacuees resettled in the East Bay area. From then to World War II, it experienced its largest growth. Growth also continued during the war with an influx of shipyard workers employed in the nearby cities of Oakland and Richmond.

Figure 7.9. Regional fault systems

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Chapter 7. Case Studies: Intermediate Jurisdictions 99

After World War II, the population declined. Between 1970 and 2000, the population dropped from 116,532 to 102,743, while the total number of dwell- ing units increased slightly from 46,160 to 46,875. Since vacant land had become limited, most new construction occurred as infill or redevelopment.

Disaster Experience Most of Berkeley’s natural disasters have been earthquakes or wildfires. Damage from the 1906 earthquake was substantially less in Berkeley than in San Francisco, where fires devastated many neighborhoods. Following the population growth in the years after that event, the Berkeley and Oakland portions of the East Bay Hills were extensively subdivided with small lots and narrow and winding dead-end roads. Because of the proliferation of a variety of flammable nonindigenous trees, such as eucalyptus and Monterey pine, and the prevalence of dry off-shore autumn winds, the hills have experienced devastating repetitive wildfires.

The most damaging wildfire in Berkeley started on September 17, 1923, in the hills to the northeast. It burned down into the community to Shat- tuck Avenue, destroying nearly 600 structures, including a library and a fire station (Berkeley 2004; see Figure 7.10). Since then, 14 large-scale fires have occurred in the Oakland Hills, of which seven originated in essentially one canyon area.

Figure 7.10. Berkeley Hills fire area, 1923

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100 Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning

A more recent event that called the community’s attention to its vulner- ability to natural disasters was the magnitude 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake, which rocked the Bay Area in October 1989, killing 63 persons, causing 3,757 injuries, and resulting in more than $10 billion in direct and indirect losses. Although Berkeley buildings experienced some damage, far greater losses were experienced in other communities, where elevated freeways collapsed, killing people and seriously disrupting the region’s transportation network. The most visible damage was in San Francisco’s Marina District, where the collapse of soft-story apartment buildings caught media attention. The downtown areas of Santa Cruz and Watsonville were also devastated.

Two years later, the Oakland Hills Fire (a.k.a. the Tunnel Fire) of October 1991 destroyed 3,400 homes in the Oakland portion of the East Bay Hills and 62 homes in the Berkeley portion. The firestorm was ignited due to a combination of factors, including an abundance of dry brush, flammable nonnative vegetation, nonfire-resistant building materials, drought, hot and dry weather, wind conditions, poor accessibility, and insufficient water pressure in some areas. Fire-fighting capability was seriously hampered by water-supply limitations in particular zones. This was compounded by the slow, difficult, and dangerous evacuation due to winding, narrow, and dead-end roads in the hills. Twenty-five people died. Lessons learned from the Oakland Hills Fire have since led to mitigation efforts in both Oakland and Berkeley, but a substantial wildland-urban interface (WUI) fire threat remains (Schwab et al. 1998).

Hazards and Vulnerability Berkeley’s greatest natural hazard is seismicity. Both the Hayward and San Andreas fault systems are susceptible to a high probability of a major earthquake in the next several decades. Development prior to the advent of modern building codes resulted in an inventory of structures highly vulnerable to earthquakes. These include unreinforced masonry (URM), concrete frame, tilt-up buildings built before the mid-1970s and buildings with “soft” stories (such as multiunit apartment buildings with ground-floor

Figure 7.11. Hayward Fault in Berkeley Hills

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Chapter 7. Case Studies: Intermediate Jurisdictions 101

parking). The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) estimated in 2002 that more than 13,300 housing units in Berkeley would be rendered uninhabitable by a major earthquake, resulting in a total shelter population of 8,530 (Berkeley 2004).

The community is bifurcated by the Hayward fault, which crosses directly beneath the university’s Memorial Stadium (Figure 7.12). Given the endur- ing hillside WUI fire risk, Berkeley is vulnerable to a dangerous compound threat. Not only are many of Berkeley’s older buildings at risk from severe shaking, but a magnitude 6.5 earthquake on the Hayward fault would also rupture gas and water lines, disrupt the power supply, and sever streets, increasing the likelihood of postearthquake fire spread within the community (Berkeley 2004). Fire following earthquakes caused extensive damage after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the 1995 Kobe earthquake (Califor- nia OES 2007). Additionally, most Berkeley hillside development predates current codes and is vulnerable to landslide threat.

Learning from Disasters Learning from these experiences during the last two decades, Berkeley has moved forward in accomplishing significant disaster-risk reduction, reaching out to actively encourage key stakeholders in the community to take respon- sibility for the safety of their homes, buildings, and community facilities. Table 7.2 chronicles the outcomes of significant public initiatives.

building Retrofit Progress Berkeley has distinguished itself as a community committed to integrating mitigation and preparedness into city life. Berkeley’s significant achievements in strengthening older, seismically vulnerable public and private structures

Figure 7.12. Hayward Fault beneath Memorial Stadium

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102 Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning

TAbLE 7.2. SIGNIFICANT SAFETY ImPROVEmENT ACTIONS, 1989–2007

Year Action Outcomes

1989 Disaster Council formed Established monitoring and advocacy for preparedness and mitigation

1989 URM inventory conducted Risks identified and owners notified

1990 Board of Education reviews schools Found life-safety hazards in 7 of 16 schools

1991 Fee-waiver program established for residential seismic retrofits

Waived permit fees on seismic retrofitting; ended in early 2000s due to budget constraints

1991 Transfer tax rebate ordinance for residential/URM retrofits adopted

Allowed rebate of one third of real estate transfer tax < $1,500 for seismic upgrade of dwellings

1991 Special assessment district created for Berkeley Hills

Assessed $50/parcel/year for fire-safety programs; ended due to state Proposition 218

1991 Strengthened requirements for hill-fire hazard zones

Stricter standards for roofing and other building materials

1991 Established mandatory URM retrofit program

Required retrofitting of URM buildings built before 1956 with five-plus units; 543 of 727 URM buildings in this category retrofitted

1992 Measure A approved $158 million for school seismic retrofitting

1992 Measure G approved $55 million for fire-station seismic retrofitting, creation of emergency operations center, and water-system improvements

1996 Soft-story and tilt-up building inventories developed

4,950 units soft-story housing (10% of housing) and 59 tilt-up structures identified

1996 Measure S approved $45 million for seismic retrofit of Central Library and Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Building (City Hall)

1997 University of California’s SAFER Program established

$1.2 billion reconstruction plan for 27% of facilities needing seismic upgrading

1997 Uniform Building Code updated Requirements increased for buildings close to active faults

2000 Tsukamoto Public Safety building completed

Hazard-resistant essential services building

2000 Measures AA and Q approved $116.5 million for school safety program; tax measure for safety elements

2001 Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center retrofit completed

City Hall housing key city government functions base-isolated for seismic safety

2002 Main Library retrofit complete Major life-safety protection due to high usage

2005 Soft-story seismic upgrade ordinance adopted

Required owners of soft-story buildings of five-plus units to conduct studies, take other measures

2006 All fire stations seismically upgraded Reconstruction of seventh fire station completed; six others seismically upgraded in prior years

2007 Neighborhood caches installed 8 major emergency-supply caches and 26 small caches placed in all council districts

2008 Student Housing Disaster Preparedness Program

Funded by [Bay Area Super Urban Area Security Initiative], mandated disaster preparedness training and caches placed in seven off-campus student dormitories.

Source: Berkeley Disaster Mitigation Plan

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include the seismic retrofitting of its city hall and other critical facilities. The city has also encouraged property owners to retrofit most private URM buildings, as well as soft-story apartment buildings, through tax incentives. Between 1992 and 1998, approximately $3.5 million in property-transfer tax were waived for approximately 7,600 properties, while from 1992 to 1999 approximately $1.1 million in fees were waived for 4,100 seismic retrofit- ting permits. These incentives are credited with giving Berkeley one of the highest residential retrofit rates in the state (Figure 7.13).

As of March 2009, 543 (or 75 percent) of the 727 potentially hazardous URM buildings inventoried had been retrofitted under the Berkeley URM Retrofit Program. Remaining structures were at various stages. Only 11 structures had made no progress. Of these, eight had been issued citations. Although the retrofit program has emphasized the establishment of long- term relationships between the city and property owners, including efforts at education and provision of information, the city can, if necessary, enforce the ordinance provisions by placing properties into receivership.

Berkeley has also become a leader in Bay Area soft-story mitigation efforts promoted by ABAG, and it has made substantial progress on soft-story building retrofits. Of the 317 soft-story residential or mixed use buildings

Figure 7.13. Seismically strengthened homes, 2002

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with five or more units, 38 have been retrofitted, and 159 buildings are under notice to submit retrofit plans.

On account of such accomplishments, Berkeley has drawn regional and national attention. In 1998, it won the Western States Seismic Safety Coun- cil’s award for Overall Excellence in Hazard Mitigation, as well as ABAG’s Award for Retrofit Incentive Programs. In 1999, FEMA designated Berke- ley as the Project Impact Model Community of the Year. And in 2002 and 2003, Berkeley was awarded special recognition from the Disaster Resistant California program and designated by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services as a model community.

Importance of State Law Berkeley’s mitigation progress has been driven by a combination of disaster experience, grassroots advocacy, good science, and progressive planning programs, as well as responses to state laws. California law does not promote a statewide growth-management system. Instead, it emphasizes local accountability for coordinated planning and implementation actions, which must meet broad state standards. State law includes requirements for a comprehensive general plan, with which local development decisions must be consistent.

The Berkeley general plan gathered fame in planning circles when the university and surrounding community figured prominently in T. J. Kent’s book The Urban General Plan (1964), which significantly influenced devel- opment of California’s general plan laws. At the heart of those laws is the requirement that all cities and counties must prepare and adopt a compre- hensive general plan as a statement of future development goals, policies, and planned implementation actions. General plans must include seven elements: land use, circulation, housing, safety, conservation, open space, and noise. The safety element must reflect local hazards together with plans for their reduction. Not only must all general plan elements be consistent with one another, but implementation actions such as zoning, subdivisions, capital improvements, and permits must be consistent with the general plan, including the safety element.1

In addition to California general plan laws, other state hazard-mitigation laws passed in recent decades have guided local action commitments. Though more hazard-specific, such laws serve as a basic underpinning to the safety element of the general plan as well as implementation programs. Examples include:

1. The Earthquake Fault Zone Mapping Act of 1972, which requires the state geologist to prepare maps of major fault traces and zones and prohibits construction of new buildings used for human occupancy on the surface trace of active faults;2

2. Senate Bill 547, passed in 1986, which requires localities in the Uniform Building Code’s Seismic Zone 4 to create an inventory of all URM struc- tures and to develop a mitigation program;3

3. The Seismic Hazards Mapping Act, passed in 1990, which directs the Department of Conservation to map areas prone to liquefaction, earth- quake-induced landslides, and amplified ground shaking and requires geotechnical investigations to formulate mitigation measures before issuance of building permits in mapped zones;4 and

4. Assembly Bill 304, passed in 2005, which encourages localities to under- take surveys of soft-story buildings (defined as wood-frame multiunit residential structures constructed before January 1, 1978, where the ground-floor portion contains parking or other similar open floor space)

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as potentially hazardous in an earthquake and authorizing adoption of ordinances governing seismic retrofits using nationally recognized codes.5

Within this statutory framework, the Berkeley general plan has served as the comprehensive policy foundation by which the community has advanced its overall disaster resilience and determined its hazard mitigation policy. Following extensive study, workshops, and public hearings starting in 1999 and ending with city council adoption in December 2001, the Berkeley general plan underwent comprehensive revision. The plan identifies seven major goals, the sixth of which states: “Make Berkeley a disaster-resistant community that can survive, recover from, and thrive after a disaster.”

Goal 6 is elaborated within the Disaster Preparedness and Safety Element by six objectives, 28 policies, and 73 specific actions. Objectives include estab- lishment of an effective emergency-response program, reduction of risks to people and property, and application of land-use planning and regulation to minimize exposure to hazards, with these three together focusing directly upon earthquake, wildfire, and flood loss reduction. Hazard mitigation poli- cies and actions are found not only in the Disaster Preparedness and Safety Element but also in other elements, such as that for circulation.

First Local mitigation Plan in California Preceding the comprehensive revision of the Berkeley general plan was the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 (DMA 2000), by which localities across the country are required to prepare local hazard mitigation plans (LHMPs) as a precondition for receiving federal hazard mitigation grant funds. The Berkeley Disaster Mitigation Plan was prepared by staff and consultants with active involvement of community stakeholders starting in 2003 and concluding with city council adoption in June 2004.

The Disaster Mitigation Plan lists four objectives that are similar to the goals and objectives of the Disaster Preparedness and Safety Element of the Berkeley general plan. These objectives are:

A. Reduce the potential for life loss, injury, and economic damage to Berkeley residents from earthquakes, wildfires, landslides, and floods.

B. Increase the ability of the city government to serve the community during and after hazard events by mitigating risk to key city functions such as response, recovery, and rebuilding.

C. Protect Berkeley’s unique character and values from being compromised by hazard events.

D. Encourage mitigation activities to increase the disaster resilience of in- stitutions, private companies, and lifeline systems that are essential to Berkeley’s functioning.

Tied directly to these objectives are 16 specific action items, including eight classified as high priority, six as medium priority, and two as low priority. Each action statement is accompanied by details such as identification of proposed activities, special environmental concerns, lead organization, timeline, and resources required.

The Disaster Mitigation Plan is notable in several ways. First, it was initi- ated in 2003 and adopted in 2004, well after the 2001 adoption of the Disaster Preparedness and Safety Element. Second, it became the first LHMP in California to be approved by FEMA. Third, the plan added a new focus on risk assessment and prioritized mitigation action not evident in the Berkeley general plan. This reflected DMA’s emphasis on the need for localities to take greater responsibility for local hazards, risk, vulnerability assessment, and

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related mitigation action. This perspective is captured in the first paragraph of the plan’s executive summary:

Berkeley is a vibrant and unique community. But every aspect of the city—its economic prosperity, social and cultural diversity, and historical character—could be dramatically altered by a serious earthquake or fire. While we cannot predict or protect ourselves against every possible hazard that may strike the com- munity, we can anticipate many impacts and take steps to reduce the harm they will cause. We can make sure that tomorrow’s Berkeley continues to reflect our current values. This Mitigation Plan starts an ongoing process to evaluate the risks different types of hazards pose to Berkeley, and to engage the City and the community in dialogue to identify which steps are most important to pursue to reduce these risks. (Berkeley 2004)

Prioritizing Hazards and Actions Thus, the Disaster Mitigation Plan differs from the general plan in two important aspects. First, it clearly identifies wildfires and earthquakes as the most critical hazards and risks faced by the city. Loss estimates in Section 3 of the plan convincingly demonstrate that earthquakes and wildfires have the greatest potential to cause large human and economic losses. Second, the plan emphasizes prioritized actions related to these hazards and risks. Although the Disaster Preparedness and Safety Element contained a suitably wide range of long-term policy and action statements, it provided little, if any, focus on which mitigation actions should be pursued in what sequence. Such prescriptions are clearly set forth in the Disaster Mitigation Plan and linked directly to each of its four objectives.

Prioritization of actions was developed through a process involving staff, council members, commissioners, residents, and other stakeholders in a Disaster Mitigation Summit, commission meetings, and a city council hearing. Actions prioritized as high or medium priority included: (1) hav- ing strong community support; (2) addressing the most critical hazards; (3) focusing on preserving life and reducing injury, which were given highest pri- ority; and (4) strengthening the city’s ability to provide essential emergency services to the entire community after a disaster, which was also weighted highly. Also included in top categories were recovery actions ensuring that the city’s economic, educational, and governmental systems could resume normal functioning within 30 days of a major disaster.

Linkage to the General Plan The Disaster Mitigation Plan and the general plan have an extraordinarily close linkage. Though organized differently, the two plans are character- ized in many instances by almost interchangeable language. For example, under Objective A in the Disaster Mitigation Plan is High Priority Action A-1: “Strengthen or replace important city-owned and used buildings that are known to have structural weaknesses,” which is followed by specific action language. This action statement is similar to Disaster Preparedness and Safety Element Policy S-20, Mitigation of Potentially Hazardous Build- ings: “Pursue all feasible methods, programs, and financing to mitigate potentially hazardous buildings.”

Similarly, under Disaster Mitigation Plan Objective A is Medium Prior- ity Action A-7: “Reduce the vulnerability of residential areas located in the Hill Hazardous Fire Area [see Figure 7.14] to fires through implementation of the Subdivision Ordinance’s merger provisions and through changes to the existing residential zoning laws and building code requirements.” Such language is wholly consistent with the Disaster Preparedness and Safety

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Element’s more generalized language in Objective 3: “Plan for and regulate the uses of land to minimize exposure to hazards from either natural or human-related causes and to contribute to a ‘disaster-resistant’ community,” as well as more specific general plan policies and actions, including the element’s Policy S-16, Residential Density in the Hills: “Consider changes to the existing residential zoning in high-risk, residential areas, such as the Hill Hazardous Fire Area, to reduce the vulnerability of these areas to future disasters,” which is followed by more specific language.

Underscoring this direct relationship between the two plans is Disas- ter Mitigation Plan Medium Priority Action B-2: “Review and revise the Disaster Preparedness and Safety Element of the City’s General Plan regularly. The Mitigation Plan will be included as an appendix of the General Plan, and will be reviewed frequently.” This underscores a close relationship between the two plans in a coordinated process. California law offers postdisaster financial incentives to local jurisdictions that adopt their LHMPs as part of the general plan, but at present the two documents have not been jointly adopted.

Collaboration with Other Jurisdictions Within and around Berkeley are a variety of independent jurisdictions to which state law separately assigns hazard mitigation responsibility. Examples

Figure 7.14. Hill fire hazardous area Be

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include the Berkeley Unified School District, the University of California, Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, the East Bay Municipal Utilities District, and the East Bay Regional Park District. Most have been active partners with the city in jointly pursuing hazard mitigation projects.

For example, UC-Berkeley, which has more than 35,000 students and employs a workforce of more than 31,000, has a strong retrofit initiative, known as the Seismic Action Plan for Facilities Enhancement and Renewal (SAFER), that has resulted in significant improvements (Figure 7.15) since 1997.6 SAFER involves an investment of $1 billion over 30 years to strengthen seismically vulnerable buildings, which accounted for more than a quarter of UC-Berkeley’s inventory when the program started. The city and univer- sity have generally enjoyed a collaborative relationship, with the notable exception of a lawsuit filed by the city over expansion of an alumni facility at Memorial Stadium, which sits astride the Hayward fault (Figure 7.12, p. 101). In that case, the university prevailed, as the facility was found to be compliant with the Earthquake Fault Zoning Act because it was separated into two sections, one on either side of the fault.

Civic Culture and Hazards Berkeley has an extraordinarily strong tradition of public engagement in the formulation, review, adoption, and execution of city policy. Berkeley long ago embraced a “culture of preparedness,” which helped undergird the significant record of safety improvements summarized in Table 7.2. Making these achievements possible was a combination of intelligent forethought and awareness of risk on the part of residents, business owners, and other community stakeholders, buoyed by “champions” such as longtime mayor Tom Bates and Assistant City Manager Arrietta Chakos, together with a team of other committed building, planning, fire, and other staff professionals.

Adoption of the general plan in 2001 and the Disaster Mitigation Plan in 2004 were preceded in each case by extensive staff and citizen committee meetings, community stakeholder workshops, and formal public hearings before various commissions and the city council. For example, the Fire Safety and Disaster Preparedness Committee was heavily involved in the prepara- tion of the Disaster Preparedness and Safety Element.

This same commitment has been evident in detailed implementation monitoring. Although the general plan has not been revised since 2001, the

Figure 7.15. Accomplishments of the UC–Berkeley SAFER program

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Disaster Mitigation Plan received minor updates in 2007 with information showing the city had made steady progress toward many of its objectives. The update added a progress statement for each action as well as sugges- tions on how to implement actions yet to be addressed.

The Story Continues In the long run, Berkeley represents best practices in adaptive learning— a basic, often overlooked aspect of community planning. However, despite the culture of preparedness, the retrofit program fell on hard times with the 2009 national recession. The city, like many other communities, is now under severe budget pressure. The soft-story retrofit program has been defunded, as has a special safety-program coordinator position, upon which it depended for forward movement. Perhaps not coincidentally, a long-standing tension between that program and community rent-control advocates appears to have been exacerbated because of the cost impacts of seismic retrofits. With fewer “champions” available to promote mitigation, the Disaster Mitigation Plan update process (on a mandatory five-year cycle) has been more difficult.7 Meanwhile, the Disaster Mitigation Plan details substantial mitigation work left to do. (See Figure 7.16.)

Figure 7.16. Remaining Vulnerable Structures, 2002

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On the positive side, the city council on July 22, 2008, adopted an urgency ordinance that imposed a moratorium on most development in the Pan- oramic Hill area directly above the university within the Hill Fire Hazardous Area. The intent of the moratorium is to provide time to identify, formulate, and begin to implement a series of actions to address serious public-safety threats in that neighborhood. The scope of the initiative includes potential near-term actions as well as development of a strategy for long-range plan- ning to address the area’s underlying infrastructure and safety deficiencies. The process includes draft modifications to the zoning ordinance currently under review by the community, pending expiration of the moratorium.

Significance for Others Berkeley is something unusual, at least in California if not elsewhere: an older city with a lively, ongoing, intense, and widely shared public discus- sion regarding its current state and future. It has accomplished a remarkable amount of preventive mitigation work and strengthening against natural hazards, leading to greater resilience without altering the unique character of the community. Much of Berkeley’s remarkable success and mitigation progress have been based on its staff champions, engaged stakeholders, and political will, plus a determination to uncover community hazards and risks, particularly through detailed surveys of URM, soft-story, and other vulnerable construction.

The significant aspect of the Berkeley general plan is that this forward- looking statement of policies and actions was adopted as an outcome of the community’s determination to take sustainability into its own hands by directly addressing hazards and resilience issues related to land-use plan- ning. Berkeley has a desirably close link between its general plan and its Disaster Mitigation Plan, which together provide a factual and policy basis for mitigation and a logical sequence of prioritized action. In this respect, Berkeley is a national leader.

NOTES 1. California Government Code, sec. 65302 et seq. 2. Public Resources Code, sec. 2621 3. California Government Code, sec. 8875 4. Public Resources Code, sec. 2690 et seq. 5. Health and Safety Code, sec. 19160 et seq. 6. See http://berkeley.edu/about/fact.shtml and http://hrweb.berkeley

.edu/workforce/census/WorkForceCensus_2008-10-31.pdf. 7. Former assistant city manager Arrietta Chakos is now with Harvard

University’s Kennedy School of Government.

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