Regional agency to vote on sea level rise rules

Suisun City officials have concerns about proposed laws dealing with sea level rise affecting future downtown waterfront development in the city. (Brad Zweerink/Daily Republic)

SUISUN CITY — Suisun City officials see mixed results from their effort to keep proposed sea level rise laws from affecting downtown waterfront development, with Community Development Director April Wooden calling the latest proposals an improvement.

And various environmental groups see mixed results from their efforts to get stronger policies for wetlands restoration in flood-prone parts of the Bay Area that could be targeted for development.

It should all come to a conclusion early next month after three years of planning and 35 public hearings. The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission will vote on plans to deal with sea level rise that some scientist predict will occur over coming decades because of climate change.

Commissioners meet at 1 p.m. Oct. 6 at the San Francisco Ferry Building.

Though Wooden still has concerns, she said Monday that she thinks Suisun City can live with the commission’s latest proposals.

“They have definitely shifted from kind of a concept of retreating from the bay . . . we feel better about that.” she said. ”I think this is one of those things where time will tell and we’ll have to see how it works out.”

The commission issues permits for developments within 100 feet of the shoreline of local bays and sloughs to ensure maximum public access and to protect waterways from being filled in. Suisun City’s waterfront area falls under this jurisdiction and past developments there have received commission permits.

Maps used by the commission show additional parts of Solano County becoming vulnerable to floods and tides in coming decades, including all of Old Town, Suisun City. That raised many local questions and concerns when the commission made its initial sea level rise proposals.

For example, Suisun City officials feared that the commission might stop future development in areas predicted to someday flood or insist on flood control steps that would make development infeasible.

“We definitely have sites within the BCDC 100-foot jurisdiction,” Wooden said.

The latest version of the proposed sea level rules are much better than those proposed two years ago, she said.

Local officials also feared the commission might try to extend its regulatory reach beyond 100 feet of existing shorelines. They feared it could also seek regulatory power today over areas that might someday flood, if sea level rise happens as predicted.

“The commission never had any such intention,” a new commission report says.

Language recently added to the proposed rule seeks to make this explicit. It says that the commission’s climate change rules will apply only within the commission’s existing jurisdiction and local governments retain authority over developments more than 100 feet from the shoreline.

Some of Wooden’s concerns remain. For example, she wants the commission to define “larger shorelines projects” and “smaller shoreline projects.” Then potential developers would know if their project would trigger a larger analysis, she said.

The Sierra Club supports the proposed changes, though with reservations. It wants stronger policies to discourage developing shoreline areas likely to go under water in 25 to 50 years. Among other things, this would allow the bay’s ecosystem to survive sea level rise by giving tidal marshes and mudflats room to move upland as existing marsh and mudflats get flooded, a Sierra Club letter said.

“The goal of the Sierra Club, at least, is for BCDC to adopt an amendment that will in the face of sea level rise protect and preserve the bay and the fish and wildlife dependent upon it and that will provide for the safety of the human communities surrounding the bay,” the letter said.

Local governments because of a misunderstanding think stronger rules would lead to existing communities being abandoned to flooding from sea level rise, the Sierra Club letter said.

Should sea levels rise by 55 inches by the end of the century, more than $62 billion of Bay Area shoreline development would be at risk, a commission report said. An estimated 270,000 Bay Area residents would be at risk from flooding, should nothing be done to protect or relocate them, it said.

The flooding maps used by the commission have come under fire by some local officials. Wooden noted at an January commission hearing in Suisun City that the sea level rise flooding prediction maps used by the commission don’t take into account existing flood protection.

A new commission report acknowledges the maps don’t show existing levees, given that information on levee heights and strengths was unavailable on a regional scale. Nor do the maps show where new levees and shoreline protection to prevent flooding could be built. A disclaimer on the maps reflects this, the report said.

The report rejects the charge that the maps could inhibit investment near the bay and its waterways. While it may be true that some investors might be more cautious, the maps are not the cause of concern. Low elevations in relation to projected water depths would be the same whether or not the maps existed, the report said.

Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646, ext. 232, or beberling@dailyrepublic.net.

Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=90498

Posted by Barry Eberling on Sep 26 2011.

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