Boulder staff preview landscaping rules, WUI expansion and homeowner grants to reduce wildfire risk

City of Boulder staff on June 26 presented a working draft of wildfire-resilience guidance for urban landscaping and described how the rules will interact with proposed wildland-urban interface (WUI) code changes, grant programs and homeowner assessments.

The draft guidance, presented by Brett Kincaren, senior division manager for the nature-based solutions team in the Climate Initiatives Department, describes three scales of attention — “fire-adapted communities,” “resilient landscapes” and “safe, effective wildfire response” — and proposes new requirements for properties that are newly developed or redeveloped inside the city’s expanded WUI areas.

Why it matters: Boulder’s planning documents, utility managers and emergency operations staff are coordinating changes intended to lower the city’s financial and public-safety exposure to wildfires and related cascading impacts such as post-fire flooding and damage to water infrastructure. Staff said some measures will be regulatory (applying to new development and redevelopment in the WUI) while other measures will be strongly recommended guidance for existing homeowners.

City staff emphasized that the new restrictions will not apply retroactively to every home. “The WUI code requirements apply as requirements only to properties…